Our managing partner, NYC Medical Malpractice Lawyer Ben Rubinowitz is honored to be invited to the American Urologic Association’s Annual Meeting 2019 held in Chicago, May 3-6 2019. There he will have the opportunity to speak with Practicing Physicians and Hospital Department Chairs about Medical Malpractice in general and about the pitfalls of Electronic Medical Records, In addition, his lecture will focus on doctors’ failure to properly inform their patients of the risks, benefits and alternatives of the proposed treatment, communication errors and recurrent departures from accepted standards of medical care. The goal of the talk is to allow for better patient care.

The truck mounted crane belonging to the Brooklyn company Lifting Solutions was lifting I-beams for Starr Construction when the hydraulic system failed and the boom crashed on the sidewalk. Pedestrians panicked and ran for cover. Some of them thought it was an explosion. One person was sent to the emergency room after being injured by the debris.

A hazardous material team was dispatched by the FDNY to clean up the spill of hydraulic fluid.

Our managing partner, NYC personal injury attorney Ben Rubinowitz will be directing the “NITA Drills: A Witness Examination Boot Camp” from April 29 to May 1st 2019. This program will take place at The National Institute for Trial Advocacy Education Center in Boulder, Colorado.

The Witness Examination Boot Camp is a rapid-fire, three-day program that focuses on direct and cross-examination of witnesses, including impeachment and expert witness variations, as well as methods for delivering killer openings and summations. NITA’s groundbreaking “learning by doing” method ensures you’ll master new skills you never even knew you were missing. You’ll learn not only how to formulate great questions on the spot through muscle memory, but also how to think quickly and effectively on your feet—and the investment you’ve made over just a few days’ time will pay off the instant you step back inside the courtroom or take your next deposition.

Taught twice a year by highly experienced trial lawyers, members of the Inner Circle of Advocates, American Board of Trial Advocates and NITA’s Board of Trustees, the boot camp is limited to 24 participants to maximize the opportunity for every attendee to drill his or her skills. It usually books quickly so don’t wait too long to reserve your seat.

Reckless driving can cause dangerous car accidents in NYC and NYPD officers who are supposed to lead by example and prevent such behavior are indeed the worst offenders. After investigating the driving habits of NYPD personal, Streetblog found that some NYPD officers were repeatedly ticketed for serious violations. Among the wort drivers was a Park Slope, Brooklyn cop who accumulated 58 serious moving violations and another cop from Harlem in Manhattan who got 41 of them.

Globally when comparing regular drivers to cop drivers, police officers drive their regular car twice as recklessly as regular New Yorkers. Streetblog found that 36% of regular New Yorkers had their car ticketed once for a serious violation compared to 58% for cops’ personal cars. Additionally 19% of regular people’s cars received a second serious violation compared to 37% of cops’ personal cars.

Streetblog also found that if the Reckless Driver Accountability Act would pass, more cops’ cars than regular New Yorkers’ cars would be seized by the City

Every day 223 older adults visit the emergency room after being injured in a fall in NY State, 140 are hospitalized and 2 die. Fall is the leading cause of unintentional injuries and deaths among older New Yorkers and among older people in the US as well. In the US every 19 minutes an older person dies from injuries related to a fall.

For people over 65 year old, falls often have serious consequences that can affect their global well being, their mobility, their independence and their mental health. 60% of the older New Yorkers who are hospitalized after a fall end up in a nursing home or a rehabilitation center. 11% of them suffer traumatic brain injury and 27% of them suffer from hip fractures. In most cases falls occur at home. 60% of older adults hospitalized for a fall in New York fell in their own home.

Obviously as people get older, they loose some of their strength, they sometimes have physical disabilities, their vision is decreasing and they take more medication which can lead to drowsiness. All these factors increase the risk of fall.

A cyclist was fatally struck by a car in NYC on Thursday. The victim, identified as 53 year old Robert Spencer, is the sixth person to die in a bicycle accident in New York City since the beginning of the year. Spencer was riding his bicycle on Borden Avenue on Thursday morning a little bit before 8:00 am when he was struck by a car traveling on Second Street in Queens. The driver, a 51 year old man stayed at the scene of the accident and wasn’t charged.The victim was rushed to the hospital but he couldn’t be saved.

The area where the accident occurred used to be industrial but recent developments are quickly transforming the neighborhood into a more residential area. While there is a protected bike lane on Second Street, Borden offers no protection for cyclists. According to residents, speeding double parking and failing to yield to pedestrians is common on Borden. The shareholders of the Murano, a residential building located a block away from the accident have already written a letter to the city and to their Council Member Jimmy Van Bramer to ask for a two-way protected bike-lane on Borden as well as other traffic calming measures. Their effort was supported by Van Bramer who wrote directly to the DOT on March 4th to support the residents’request for a bike lane and other traffic calming measures. The residents of the Murano also tried to lobby their local community board for protected bike lanes along Borden Avenue, but the community board refused to consider their request. (read more in Street blog)

The second fatal crash of a Boeing 737 MAX last Sunday in Ethiopia has led to a worldwide decision by aviation authorities to ground all Boeing 737 MAX. The US was the last of 42 other countries to make this decision. 157 people lost their lives in Sunday’s crash and 189 died in October in Indonesia in a very similar airplane crash.

According to recent investigations both crashes occurred in a very similar manner. A new flight control system for which pilots weren’t proprely trained may have caused both accidents according to preliminary investigations. According to an article in the New York Times, after the first accidents, the pilots union complained that Boeing didn’t inform pilots that in some cases the new flight control system could automatically push the nose of the plane down. Experts believe this change may have played a role in both accidents.

Thankfully nobody was injured by debris that fell from the elevated line tracks in Queens, NYC, last week. Last Wednesday, a hunk of rusty metal fell on Fernando Marin’s car, cracking the windshield. The car was parked on Roosevelt Ave below the elevated tracks. The owner, Fernando Martin told the NY Daily News that it was really scary and that the metal could have hit his head. He felt lucky to be alive.

Almost two weeks before the incident, a Uber driver also had a terrifying experience just two blocks away. A wooden plank from the elevated train platform flew into his car. The driver wasn’t injured but he was in shock. The wooden debris came from an old supply platform that was installed under the tracks years ago. MTA workers were seen dismantling the rest of the rotted wood beams a few days later.

On Monday the MTA also announced that the line 7 elevated tracks were safe and that it was perfectly safe to stand or drive under them. They also indicated that a truck hit the track structure recently in the areas of the falling debris and that this accident may have caused the two incidents but no root cause has been identified.

The driver who fatally struck an 85 year old woman in Brooklyn, NYC, last Wednesday had previously received 10 tickets for speeding in a school zone and two for running red lights. The police haven’t filed any charges against the driver. The daughter is furious and wants the driver charged. She believes that a bill such as the “Reckless Driver Accountability Act” proposed by Brooklyn Councilman Brad Lander would help stop reckless driving in New York and could have prevented the death of her mother. The bill was proposed last year by Councilman Brad Lander after a reckless driver killed Abigail Blumenstein and Joshua Lew in Park Slope. Stella Clinton was backed over by the reckless driver as she was walking home from her Brooklyn parish church after an Ash Wednesday service. The accident occurred on Avenue S near Brown Street, in Marine Park, Brooklyn.

468 people died of medical malpractice in NYC’s public hospitals in the past 5 years according to a recent article in the New York Post. Among all 11 HHC hospitals, Kings County Hospital in Brooklyn had the worst record. 91 claims of wrongful death related to medical malpractice were filed against the Brooklyn hospital between the beginning of 2014 and the end of 2018. Bellevue, a much larger city hospital located in Manhattan came second with 54 wrongful death claims filed against it during the same period.

The Post analysed City Comptroller data obtained through a Freedom of Information request and found that the city paid $34 million to 56 families in 2014. Among the cases closed, the Post found out that some patients died in horrific conditions from gross medical malpractice committed by these hospitals. Among the most shocking were:

The wrongful death of a woman who died from organ failure after doctors at Kings County Hospital in Brooklyn ignored her tuberculosis diagnosis and botched her treatment. Her family was awarded $3.2 million, one of the largest amounts paid by HHC to the 56 families.